"There is no way of estimating manners or apprising the different humours, fancies, passions, and apprehensions of others without first taking an inventory of the same kind of goods within ourselves and surveying our domestic fund."
— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
John Morphew
Date
1710, 1714
Metaphor
"There is no way of estimating manners or apprising the different humours, fancies, passions, and apprehensions of others without first taking an inventory of the same kind of goods within ourselves and surveying our domestic fund."
Metaphor in Context
Accordingly we might now proceed to exhibit, distinctly and in due method, the form and manner of this probation or exercise as it regards all men in general. But the case of authors in particular being, as we apprehend, the most urgent, we shall apply our rule in the first place to these gentlemen, whom it so highly imports to know themselves and understand the natural strength and powers as well as the weaknesses of a human mind. For without this understanding, the historian's judgment will be very defective, the politician's views very narrow and chimerical, and the poet's brain, however stocked with fiction, will be but poorly furnished as, in the sequel, we shall make appear. He who deals in characters must of necessity know his own, or he will know nothing. And he who would give the world a profitable entertainment of this sort should be sure to profit, first, by himself. For, in this sense, wisdom as well as charity may be honestly said 'to begin at home'. There is no way of estimating manners or apprising the different humours, fancies, passions, and apprehensions of others without first taking an inventory of the same kind of goods within ourselves and surveying our domestic fund. A little of this home practice will serve to make great discoveries: Live with yourself, and you'll know how modestly you are furnished.
(p. 85)
(p. 85)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
A complicated publication history. At least 10 entries in ESTC (1710, 1711, 1714, 1733, 1744, 1751, 1757, 1758, 1773, 1790).
See Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author (London: John Morphew, 1710). <Link to ESTC><Link to Google Books>
See also "Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author" in Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. In Three Volumes. (London: John Darby, 1711). <Link to ESTC>
Some text drawn from ECCO and Google Books; also from Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge: CUP, 2001). Klein's text is based on the British Library's copy of the second edition of 1714. [Texts to be collated.]
See Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author (London: John Morphew, 1710). <Link to ESTC><Link to Google Books>
See also "Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author" in Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. In Three Volumes. (London: John Darby, 1711). <Link to ESTC>
Some text drawn from ECCO and Google Books; also from Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge: CUP, 2001). Klein's text is based on the British Library's copy of the second edition of 1714. [Texts to be collated.]
Date of Entry
11/06/2003
